OverDrive Continued to Dominate Library eBooks in 2012

Library ebooks are facing some hostility from the major publishers but that doesn't mean that library patrons are being turned away. Earlier this week OverDrive put out a press release touting the great year they had in 2012, and by any account it was a very good year.According to OD, their catalog now includes content in 65 languages, including 300,000 titles added in 2012. They offer over 1 million ebook, audiobook, music, and video titles which were checked out 70 million digital times in 2012.

OverDrive's 22,000 partner libraries around the globe received 192 million website visits last year, up 93% from 2011. A growing portion of those visits came from mobile devices (47%), telling us that tablets and smartphones running OverDrive's apps for Android and iOS are likely the most common reading device.

OD also added around 4,000 new library partners in 2012, dwarfing their competition. Baker & Taylor's Axis360 and the 3M Cloud Library each have a few hundred library partners, while Ingram's MyLibrary has several thousand partners mainly among academic libraries.

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Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader:"I've been into reading ebooks since forever, but I only got my first ereader in July 2007. Everything quickly spiraled out of control from there. Before I started this blog in January 2010 I covered ebooks, ebook readers, and digital publishing for about 2 years as a part of MobileRead Forums. It's a great community, and being a member is a joy. But I thought I could make something out of how I covered the news for MobileRead, so I started this blog."

1 Comment on OverDrive Continued to Dominate Library eBooks in 2012

I’m torn. There’s all these postings about book-less libraries and while I’m a grownup and can make my own decisions, I fret for what this means about how circumscribed and observed the lives of minors in libraries will be going forward. Patriot Act notwithstanding, I’d be okay (if I were a young person) with real librarians protecting my history. Overdrive, not so much.

OTOH, I just discovered a big-ol’ mold problem on one of my dead-tree bookshelves this morning. F*ck.